This is the Great White Con version as opposed to the NOAA version published during the Fall AGU conference earlier this week, although there is some overlap.
Hot off the presses, here’s how Arctic sea ice age has progressed over the last year and a bit:
The 4 and 5 year old ice looks to be edging away from the area north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago towards the Fram Strait. Here’s the current CryoSat-2 Arctic sea ice thickness map:
Almost no ice over 2 meters thick to be found in the Beaufort sector or anywhere on the Siberian side of the Arctic. Here’s the current AMSR2 Arctic sea ice area graph:
Lowest for the date in the satellite record. Here’s the NSIDC’s long term trend in November sea ice extent:
Act 1 of a 3 act play according to Don Perovich at AGU. Here’s the current PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume anomaly graph:
Lowest for the date in the satellite record. Here’s NOAA’s Arctic and global surface temperature graph:
Warmest in a record going back to 1900. Here’s the current DMI >80N surface temperature graph:
and here’s the current Arctic surface temperature anomaly map:
Finally, for the moment at least, here’s global sea ice area just for good measure:
Need I say more? How about this:
Ice has no agenda. It just melts.
Out of the labs and into the streets?
“Post-truth” is the the Oxford Dictionaries word of the year for 2016. The definition reads as follows:
post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.
and according to Oxford Dictionaries:
The concept of post-truth has been in existence for the past decade, but Oxford Dictionaries has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become associated with a particular noun, in the phrase post-truth politics.
Post-truth has gone from being a peripheral term to being a mainstay in political commentary, now often being used by major publications without the need for clarification or definition in their headlines.
Our old friend David Rose has been remarkably quiet on the topic of Arctic sea ice recently. Presumably the objective facts from the Arctic are impossible to spin to his satisfaction even for a man of David’s talents? However that didn’t stop him from penning an article for The Mail on Sunday at the end of November on the topic of the recent “record highs in global temperatures“:
Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C since the middle of this year – their biggest and steepest fall on record.
The news comes amid mounting evidence that the recent run of world record high temperatures is about to end. The fall, revealed by Nasa satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere, has been caused by the end of El Niño – the warming of surface waters in a vast area of the Pacific west of Central America.
The Mail article helpfully included this one year old video from the World Meteorological Organization, explaining the basics of the El Niño phenomenon:
According to the commentary:
This phenomenon affects weather conditions across the equatorial Pacific, with potential knock on effects in other parts of the world.
We’ll get on to the “potential knock on effects” in the Arctic eventually, but let’s start with a snippet of Mr. Rose’s “post-truth politics”:
Some scientists, including Dr Gavin Schmidt, head of Nasa’s climate division, have claimed that the recent highs were mainly the result of long-term global warming.
Last year, Dr Schmidt said 2015 would have been a record hot year even without El Nino. ‘The reason why this is such a warm record year is because of the long-term underlying trend, the cumulative effect of the long-term warming trend of our Earth,’ he said. This was ‘mainly caused’ by the emission of greenhouse gases by humans.
Other experts have also disputed Dr Schmidt’s claims. Professor Judith Curry, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network, said yesterday: ‘I disagree with Gavin. The record warm years of 2015 and 2016 were primarily caused by the super El Nino.’ The slowdown in warming was, she added, real, and all the evidence suggested that since 1998, the rate of global warming has been much slower than predicted by computer models – about 1C per century.
David Whitehouse, a scientist who works with Lord Lawson’s sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the massive fall in temperatures following the end of El Nino meant the warming hiatus or slowdown may be coming back. ‘According to the satellites, the late 2016 temperatures are returning to the levels they were at after the 1998 El Nino. The data clearly shows El Nino for what it was – a short-term weather event,’ he said.
In case you’re wondering where the politics is in all of this, you need look no further than here:
The last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare. Thanks [sic] what’s now recognised as an unusually strong El Nino, global temperatures were driven to sufficiently high levels to revive the alarmist narrative – after an unhelpful pause period of nearly 20 years – that the world had got hotter than ever before.
In case you’re also wondering about the objective facts of the matter David Rose quotes with approval “the authoritative Met Office ‘Hadcrut4’ surface record” in his latest article in the Mail on Sunday this very morning:
New official data issued by the Met Office confirms that world average temperatures have plummeted since the middle of the year at a faster and steeper rate than at any time in the recent past.
The huge fall follows a report by this newspaper that temperatures had cooled after a record spike. Our story showed that these record high temperatures were triggered by naturally occurring but freak conditions caused by El Nino – and not, as had been previously suggested, by the cumulative effects of man-made global warming.
The Mail on Sunday’s report was picked up around the world and widely attacked by green propagandists as being ‘cherry-picked’ and based on ‘misinformation’. The report was, in fact, based on Nasa satellite measurements of temperatures in the lower atmosphere over land – which tend to show worldwide changes first, because the sea retains heat for longer.
There were claims – now exploded by the Met Office data shown here – that our report was ‘misleading’ and ‘cherry-picked’.
Yet bizarrely, the fiercest criticism was reserved for claims we never made – that there isn’t a long-term warming trend, mainly caused by human emissions.
This just wasn’t in our report – which presumably, critics hadn’t even read.
We’ve explained all this to David before, yet bizzarely we obviously need to do so again. Here’s the Mail’s version of the latest HADCRUT 4 data from the Met Office:
Can you spot any “cumulative effects of man-made global warming”?
Messrs Smith, Rose, Delingpole, Whitehouse et al. may well be unaware of the fact that the satellite temperature data they’re so fond of cherry picking doesn’t include data from the lower troposphere between 80 degrees North and the North Pole. Just in case they fancy spinning the latest objective facts from the Arctic in the near future, here’s the long term autumnal temperature trend:
CryoSat-2 has burst back into life after its summer break. Here is what it reveals about Arctic sea ice thickness at the moment:
Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the NSIDC 5 day average Arctic sea ice extent is once again less than on the same day of 2012, the year of the “record melt”:
The Central Arctic has of course already been battered by the Great Arctic Cyclone(s) of August 2016. The minimum sea ice extent has been called by the NSIDC, with a slight proviso:
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its seasonal minimum extent for 2016 on September 10. A relatively rapid loss of sea ice in the first ten days of September has pushed the ice extent to a statistical tie with 2007 for the second lowest in the satellite record. September’s low extent followed a summer characterized by conditions generally unfavorable for sea ice loss.
Please note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds or late-season melt could still reduce the Arctic ice extent, as happened in 2005 and 2010. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the Arctic melt season, and discuss the Antarctic winter sea ice growth, in early October.
On September 10, Arctic sea ice extent stood at 4.14 million square kilometers (1.60 million square miles).
Now, however, yet another cyclone is raging in the Central Arctic. According to Environment Canada this one is already down to a mean sea level pressure of 975 hPa:
As our regular readers will be well aware, at this time of year strong winds beget large swells. On this occasion it looks as though Barrow will get another battering, as well as the remaining and refreezing sea ice. Here’s the current WaveWatch III significant wave height forecast for September 18th:
Such large swells on the surface of the Arctic Ocean don’t only physically break up the sea ice. Last September scientists aboard the University of Alaska’s research icebreaker Sikuliaq observed the effects of a similar storm in the Beaufort Sea. According to Jennifer MacKinnon, Chief Scientist on the ArcticMix voyage:
One of the funny things about the Arctic is that there’s a reservoir of heat beneath the surface here.
So the more the wind is blowing on the ocean, the more it’s mixing this heat upwards. Which is bringing warmer water to the surface at a pretty rapid rate, warming the surface and accelerating the rate at which this ice is melting.
And if storms like this continue, as there’s more open water, more storms mean more exposed surface. It will not only melt the ice in the summer, but delay the onset of fall ice formation and accelerate the onset of spring ice melting.
In October 2015 the Sikuliaq was back in the Beaufort Sea observing the effect of storm swells on refreezing sea ice. Here’s a report from Chief Scientist Jim Thomson:
A strong easterly wind event came through that built large waves — waves that got to almost five meters in height. And the winds were something like up to thirty knots. And these waves were coming into the newly forming ice and making pancake ice.
There was a very warm layer of water 20 meters down beneath the surface. And these waves coming in were enough to drive additional mixing and bring that warm water up from the subsurface and that warm water melted the ice and changed that balance happening at the surface.
As if all that wasn’t already enough to worry about look who’s waiting in the wings. Tropical Storm Ian is heading towards the Arctic Circle at a rate of knots, even as we speak:
SURF ZONE FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BARROW AK
0500 AM AKDT SAT SEP 17 2016
AKZ202-171230-
NORTHERN ARCTIC COAST
INCLUDING THE BEACHES OF BARROW…PITT POINT…NULAVIK
0500 AM AKDT SAT SEP 17 2016
.TODAY AND TONIGHT…
.WIND… WESTERLY 20 TO 35 MPH.
.SURF HEIGHT… 2 TO 5 FT.
.SURF TEMP… 36 DEGREES F.
.TIDES… LOW SAT 0826 AM -0.03
HIGH SAT 0230 PM 0.38
LOW SAT 0846 PM -0.02
HIGH SUN 0250 AM 0.38
…HIGH SURF ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM AKDT MONDAY…
* WAVES AND SURF…WAVES TO 10 FEET BREAKING JUST OFFSHORE COMBINED WITH TIDES UP TO 1 FOOT ABOVE NORMAL WILL CAUSE HIGH SURF CONDITIONS.
* ICE…WITH ICE JUST OFF SHORE FROM BARROW…IT IS POSSIBLE THAT CHUNKS OF SEA ICE WILL WASH UP ON SHORE EVEN WITH WINDS PREDICTED TO BE AT NEARLY PARALLEL TO THE SHORE.
* WINDS…WEST 20 TO 30 MPH FROM THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH EARLY MONDAY MORNING.
* TIMING…HIGH SURF IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND CONTINUE THROUGH EARLY MONDAY.
* IMPACTS…HIGH SURF WILL WASH TO THE TOP OF THE BEACH AND CAUSE BEACH EROSION. MINOR FLOODING OF LOW LYING AREAS IS POSSIBLE AND SURF COULD WASH ONTO LOW LYING ROADS NEAR THE BEACH.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A HIGH SURF ADVISORY MEANS THAT LOCALIZED BEACH EROSION IS EXPECTED. SURF COULD WASH ONTO LOW LYING ROADS NEAR THE BEACH LIMITING TRAVEL NEAR THE BEACH. PEOPLE SHOULD MOVE BOATS AND PERSONAL PROPERTY INLAND FROM THE BEACH.
[Edit – September 19th]
Somewhat belatedly, before:
and after:
the storm images from the Barrow webcam, which has just burst back into life. Plus an image of the cyclone from on high:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on September 18th 2016, derived from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi satellite
Here’s a satellite image of the Beaufort Sea this year, which is red on Tony’s low resolution 2015/16 comparison map:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on May 20th 2016
Here’s a satellite image of the the northern edge of the CAA last year, which is green on Tony’s map:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on May 20th 2015
Would you care to play “spot the difference” with Peter and I?
[Edit – May 28th 2016]
Tony is doubling down on his Arctic fraud. His Arctic monkey business continues. Despite the lucid explanation of his glaring error provided by Peter Ellis the unReal Science Gish gallop continues. We are now (un)reliably informed that:
The Arctic is very cold, and is not melting.
The amount of ice in the Arctic is almost exactly the same as this date last year.
Yours truly has asked all and sundry at unReal Science this question 9 times, phrased in a variety of different ways:
Here’s a satellite image of the the northern edge of the CAA last year. Take a good look at it and then show me the areas of open water corresponding to the green areas on Tony’s final map above.
Once again “No answer!” was the stern reply to my plaintive questions.
[Edit – May 30th 2016]
The “Jousting with Malice in Blunderland” continues, but the oppostion are remarkably quiet today. I’ve had my knuckles rapped about this previously, but cutting and pasting is so quick ‘n easy I simply cannot resist:
Us:
Evidently Tony Heller believes that when it comes to melting sea ice air temperatures are all that matters and that “somewhat warmer ocean water” is irrelevant. see above:
He also evidently believes that in May 2015 large areas of the oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic had already melted away to nothing. Perhaps you can point out all the polynyas around the coast of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago this time last year to him, since nobody else has yet managed to do so?
gees, Jimbo has change to a luminous blue.
Very pretty Jim..
Now how about you show one that shows th near ZERO Arctic sea ice from the first 3/4 of the Holocene..
Or are you still going to DENY/ IGNORE the FACT that there is nothing untoward happening with the Arctic Sea Ice, and all you are arguing about is the INSIGNIFICANT TRIVIA that rules your meaningless life.
Us:
For psychedelic Arctic surface air temperature fans every where:
What do you suppose happens to sea ice when you combine “somewhat warmer ocean water” with “somewhat above freezing point air”?
N.B. Such conditions do not currently exist off the north coast of the CAA. They didn’t in May 2015 either.
Them:
You on psycho drugs yet again, Jimbo
Which of your Exeter buddies is feeding them too you ?
Us:
Evidently you and Tony are the ones who have been smoking stuff Andy.
In the fantasy wonderland portrayed in several of Tony’s recent “articles” polynyas are depicted in the oldest, thickest sea ice in the Arctic in May 2015. Here is what the real life polynyas in the “oldest, thickest sea ice” in the actual Arctic of May 2016 look like from above (through cyan tinted spectacles):
Shut up about the Holocene, it’s not relevant to modern Arctic sea ice extent trends.
It’t like talking about sun spot trends and then someone comes along and says “Well, this is nothing compared to when the sun becomes a red giant”. Which is true, but not relevant at all.
Us:
Have you noticed that the world’s leading expert on satellite imagery of the Arctic during the first 3/4 of the Holocene epoch has compared MODIS imagery of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from May 2015 with May 2016 and confirmed that there is no noticeable difference in sea ice extent between the two?
Today’s Arctic sea ice claim comes from the Bishop Hill blog of Andrew Montford, which recently stated that:
This morning’s story appears to be the hoary old “Arctic sea ice in freefall” one.
“The Arctic is in crisis. Year by year, it’s slipping into a new state, and it’s hard to see how that won’t have an effect on weather throughout the Northern Hemisphere,” said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.”
As usual on these occasions, I take a quick look at the Cryosphere Today anomaly page, where I find the sea ice apparently still stuck firmly in “pause” mode.
Having inadvertently wended my way onto The Bishop’s Hill via the northerly extension to Eli’s Rabett Warren I felt compelled, as usual, to quibble with Andrew’s “apparently firmly in ‘pause’ mode” claim. Since graphs in comments are not available over on The Hill, or The Rabett Run for that matter, let’s take a look at some graphic representations of the available data over here instead. Commenter “Golf Charlie” asks at The Bishop’s:
With CO₂ levels continuing to rise, why hasn’t temperature risen, and the ice disappeared as predicted?
Let’s see shall we? CO₂ levels are indeed continuing to rise:
In the latest edition of their “Arctic Sea Ice News” the United States’ National Snow and Ice Data Center have announced that:
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual maximum extent on March 24, and is now the lowest maximum in the satellite record, replacing last year’s record low. This year’s maximum extent occurred later than average. A late season surge in ice growth is still possible. NSIDC will post a detailed analysis of the 2015 to 2016 winter sea ice conditions in early April.
On March 24, 2016, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.52 million square kilometers (5.607 million square miles). This year’s maximum ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record, with below-average ice conditions everywhere except in the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay, and Hudson Bay. The maximum extent is 1.12 million square kilometers (431,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average of 15.64 million square kilometers (6.04 million square miles) and 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) below the previous lowest maximum that occurred last year. This year’s maximum occurred twelve days later than the 1981 to 2010 average date of March 12. The date of the maximum has varied considerably over the years, occurring as early as February 24 in 1996 and as late as April 2 in 2010.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has also made a similar announcement, which includes this video:
The new record low follows record high temperatures in December, January and February around the globe and in the Arctic. The atmospheric warmth probably contributed to this lowest maximum extent, with air temperatures up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit above average at the edges of the ice pack where sea ice is thin, said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The wind patterns in the Arctic during January and February were also unfavorable to ice growth because they brought warm air from the south and prevented expansion of the ice cover. But ultimately, what will likely play a bigger role in the future trend of Arctic maximum extents is warming ocean waters, Meier said.
“It is likely that we’re going to keep seeing smaller wintertime maximums in the future because in addition to a warmer atmosphere, the ocean has also warmed up. That warmer ocean will not let the ice edge expand as far south as it used to,” Meier said. “Although the maximum reach of the sea ice can vary a lot each year depending on winter weather conditions, we’re seeing a significant downward trend, and that’s ultimately related to the warming atmosphere and oceans.” Since 1979, that trend has led to a loss of 620,000 square miles of winter sea ice cover, an area more than twice the size of Texas.
This year’s record low sea ice maximum extent will not necessarily result in a subsequent record low summertime minimum extent, Meier said. Summer weather conditions have a larger impact than the extent of the winter maximum in the outcome of each year’s melt season; warm temperatures and summer storms make the ice melt fast, while if a summer is cool, the melt slows down.
Neither NASA or the NSIDC comment on one of the striking things about this winter’s NSIDC extent chart, which has effectively “plateaued” during March 2016 following an initial peak of 14.48 million square kilometers on March 2nd, which was only recently exceeded. This is also illustrated by the JAXA Arctic sea ice extent metric, for which the 2016 maximum was 13.96 million square kilometers on February 29th:
Now that the start of 2016 Arctic sea ice melting season has been called, albeit slightly hesitantly, by the experts at the NSIDC let’s also take a look at Cryosphere Today Arctic sea ice area:
The preliminary peak which we announced on March 16th has also recently been exceeded, but we now feel supremely confident in predicting that the 2016 CT area maximum will be less than 13 million square kilometers for the first time ever in the satellite record.
Thus begins what promises to be a very interesting 2016 Arctic sea ice melting season! As the NSIDC puts it:
There is little correlation between the maximum winter extent and the minimum summer extent—this low maximum does not ensure that this summer will see record low ice conditions. A key factor is the timing of widespread surface melting in the high Arctic. An earlier melt onset is important to the amount of energy absorbed by the ice cover during the summer. If surface melting starts earlier than average, the snow darkens and exposes the ice below earlier, which in turn increases the solar heat input, allowing more ice to melt. With the likelihood that much of the Arctic cover is somewhat thinner due to the warm winter, early surface melting would favor reduced summer ice cover.
With apologies to O’Reilly Media Inc. here’s a brief history of the “DMIGate” story, viewed through Anthony Watts’ distorting spectacle lenses.
0) Here is the February 14th 2016 edition of the Danish Meteorological Institutes’s long “deprecated” 30% concentration threshold Arctic sea ice extent graph in question:
1) On August 14th 2013 Anthony Watts wrote on his “Watts Up With That” blog:
There has been so much skulduggery going on in the climate establishment in recent years that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this graph has been withdrawn simply because it gives the “wrong” results.
3) Anthony Watts refuses to publish any and all comments on his blog pointing out what he himself had confirmed that DMI said in August 2013.
You post off topic or disrupt threads with the sort of unsubstantiated nonsense you post above, and both demand to have these off topic comments heard and then play the “look Watts is censoring me!” game when your comments don’t meet our site comment policy and/or are abusive in nature.
David – Are you suffering from acute snow blindness too, just like poor Paul Homewood? Try reading this if you haven’t already. Try reading it again if you have:
In view of the incontrovertible evidence why would anyone believe anything Paul Homewood, Anthony Watts and Judith Curry claim about “Climate Etc.” ever again?
Arctic sea ice extent has been anomalously low this winter. The greatest anomalies are in the European sector, specifically in the Barents Sea. To what extent are the anomalies associated with warm temperatures?
Which she answered as follows:
So, what might be causing this particular anomaly? Some possibilities are:
Gobal warming (January 2016 was warmest Jan on record, according to the surface temperature analyses
Multidecadal oscillations (e.g. stadium wave) predicts ice recovery to be occurring in the same region (European Arctic) where we see the sea ice decline).
Seasonal weather circulation patterns – this has been a year with with unusual weather patterns, with both low temperature and high temperature records being set.
As regular readers will already be aware we have been blogging about anomalously warm temperatures in the Arctic all year and so felt well qualified to contribute to the “debate”. What a job that turned out to be! Early on in the proceedings the anticipated pronouncement was made by one of Judith’s “denizens”. A link to a ludicrously inaccurate article on Watts Up With That accompanied by the following words of wisdom:
Other measures are high.
Which of course they aren’t! Instead of stating the bleedin’ obvious Professor Curry replied:
I spotted this, no idea what to make of it.
You would think she and her denizens would therefore have been pleased when I attempted to explain to her what to make of it, but you would have been mistaken. The icing on the ad hominem cake was the aforementioned Anthony Watts driving by to accuse me of all sorts of nefarious activities without providing a single shred of evidence and then running for the hills when invited to actually prove his ludicrous allegations.
Since the denizens of “Climate Etc.” aren’t particularly interested let’s take stock here instead shall we? After every Arctic area and extent metric under the sun sitting at “lowest *ever” levels for weeks a recent increase in coverage on the Pacific side of the Arctic has changed that. The most up to date example of that is the JAXA/ADS extent, which currently looks like this:
The latest reading is the merest whisker above 2015’s record low maximum. However in other respects things are most certainly not comparable with 2015. See for example this concentration comparison from Andrew Slater of the NSIDC:
Much more ice on the Pacific periphery where it will all have disappeared by September, as opposed to much less ice on the Atlantic side, even well to the north of 80 degrees latitude where the sun still does not shine. Here’s a video revealing how the sea ice North of the Pacific Ocean has been reacting to the sequence of hurricane force storms that have been passing through the area over the past couple of months:
Now let’s take a look at “near real time” Arctic sea ice thickness as measured by the CryoSat 2 satellite:
Notice the absence of any thick ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, an obvious difference from last year? Notice too the large area of thick ice that looks as though it’s heading towards the Fram strait exit from the Central Arctic. Here’s another video, this time of sea ice movement over on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean:
Those dark areas between Svalbard and the North Pole are suddenly starting to look as though they represent reality rather than a mere “artifact”, although perhaps they are merely transient evidence of yet another Arctic “heat wave”?
Our title this morning is but a brief extract from a conversation I started on Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog about (believe it or not!) the effects of large wind driven swells on the “Marginal Ice Zone” of sea ice in the Arctic:
Whilst “skeptics” like Pethewin keep on flogging that particular “dead parrot” the DMI have just published an explanation of the erroneously high readings on their now deceased 30% concentration threshold Arctic sea ice extent metric. Here’s an extract, together with a pretty picture for the benefit of those amongst we Cryospheric commenters who are hard of understanding:
The apparent elevated sea ice extent in the data from the old extent algorithm was an artifact, caused by a new and higher resolution coast mask.
Surely that’s easy enough for even the dumbest of all the armchair Arctic analysts scattered across the internet to comprehend?
Going into more detail, the DMI article explains that:
Most of our sea ice extent followers know that the old plot includes a coastal mask, inside which sea ice was is accounted for. In summer 2015 this mask was refined and the masked region was subsequently smaller, thus leaving more area for classified sea ice and open water. The difference in masked area, before and after summer 2015, is approximately 1.4 million km2. This corresponds to difference of the blue coast lines in figure 2, showing the old and new coastal masks in the left and right panels, respectively. The difference may be difficult to detect on the figure, but the area is quite significant. The increasing sea ice extent that is caused by the new coast mask is not great during summer, because sea ice has a relative short line of contact with land during summer. But the new and finer coast mask will result in increasingly more sea ice, compared to previous years during winter, as the coast line with sea ice contact is increasing. This is the reason for an increasing sea ice extent during current freeze-up period, relative to previous winters. A comparison of the 2015/2016 sea ice extent with previous years does therefore not make sense.
Note how the dark blue “coastal mask” in the left hand image from February 22nd 2015 is thicker than the one in the right hand image from the same date this year. DMI conclude with this apology:
Because of the deprecated status of the old plot in the past year, DMI has not been monitoring these irregularities. The old plot should, of cause, have been removed when the mask was replaced. DMI apologizes for the confusion and inconvenience this has caused.
Somehow I doubt that the assorted “skeptics” that have recently been making massive mountains out of this minor molehill will apologise for all “the confusion and inconvenience this has caused”. Causing confusion and inconvenience was probably the general idea.
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